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Compact Cars Continue to Show Strength

Both cars and trucks saw lower levels of depreciation last week. Sub-compact and mid-size crossovers/SUVs dominated in the truck segment and compact cars continued to show some of the lowest levels of depreciation in the car segment, according to Black Book.

by Staff
January 17, 2017
Compact Cars Continue to Show Strength

Chart courtesy of Black Book.

2 min to read


Chart courtesy of Black Book.

For the second week in a row, compact cars saw one of the lowest depreciation among vehicle segments last week, according to Black Book’s Jan. 17 Market Insights report.

For model years 2008-2014, compact cars saw average wholesale values decline by 0.11%, the smallest level among all small cars. Alternatively, prestige luxury cars and sub-compact cars saw average wholesale values decline the most among small cars, with declines of 0.69% and 0.64%, respectively.

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“It is interesting to see that while compact cars did very well in holding value last week, sub-compact cars continued to experience sharp decline,” said Anil Goyal, Black Book's senior vice president of automotive valuation and analytics.

Volume weighted, overall car segment values decreased by 0.41% last week, compared to the average depreciation rate of 0.51% realized in the previous four weeks.

The best-performing truck segments last week were sub-compact crossovers, mid-size crossover/SUVs, and compact vans. These segments saw average wholesale values go up by 0.17%, down by 0.02% and down by 0.16%, respectively. The worst-performing truck segments were full-size vans and full-size luxury crossover/SUVs, which both saw average wholesale values decline by 1.04%.

Volume-weighted, overall truck segment values decreased by 0.37% last week, compared to the 0.47% realized in the previous four weeks.

Looking at the year as a whole, the firm noted that the annual depreciation on used vehicles increased sharply in 2016 due to an increase in supply but a normalization in demand.

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“The depreciation rate remained 13% or lower from 2011 through 2013. However, in 2016, it jumped to 17.3%," according to the report. 

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